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The Other Me: Paul Colman Uncut

Editor of About Christian Music, Mark Tulk, caught up with Paul Colman recently to hear why -- amongst other things -- two years ago, Australia's most successful Christian musician turned his back on the limelight... and joined the Newsboys.

Mark Tulk: Thanks for your time tonight Paul! FIrst up -- and I know it's a big question -- but how do you, personally, define 'Christian Music'?

Paul Colman: I have been through a huge journey and had a big hang-up with words. For many years, I never used the word 'Christian' because I found it very ambiguous. I had a big spiel: 'Oh no, I don't call myself this and I don't call myself that...' and in the end I began to doubt my motivation for all my opinions. I started to think that I was saying to people 'This is all about Jesus' and 'Jesus plus nothing equals everything'. But I think I made it such a big deal that I probably missed it myself -- and I did make it my opinion that 'Jesus plus nothing' was bigger than Jesus!

For me, years ago, I would have thought it wishy-washy to 'go with the flow' and say words like 'Christian' and other words which I found terribly ambiguous. But these days I have found that I don't worry as much... For me, to talk about Christian music I have to define the term, what it means. If we are talking about Christian music... well, what's a Christian?

I think I became a bit of a Pharisee about people being Pharisees. I was probably worse than the Pharisees I was describing, because I was very self-righteous about the very fact that I thought other people were very self-righteous! So a few years ago I decided to start throwing things 'out of the cart', things that I felt hindered relationships. For me, one of those things was all of my ideas about the church -- like when I looked at some TV program and saw some guy and thought, 'this guy is probably a crook' and then I thought to myself, 'well maybe he is and maybe he isn't, but probably what is worse than him being a crook is my attitude towards this guy'.

Travelling the world and singing in churches all over the globe actually kinda humbled me. It made me start to see that no-one really has it down, no-one really has the whole thing cornered. We are a body and we all need each other. And I've gone from singing with Billy Graham to singing with Joel Houston; to Hillsong to your little church in the Czech republic. I've sung in the biggest churches in America and Canada and Delirious' church in London... and then in Scotland and Ireland and these places. And then I've played in third world countries: singing to churches in Kenya, Uganda and in the Philippines. Then to Singapore, China and then Russia, in Catholic and Protestant places. After a while, you end up feeling pretty humble!

I was talking to a Mormon lady on the plane over to Holland a year or two ago and we started just chatting. It got down to areas of faith and after a while I realised that she was a Mormon. What I felt like God was telling me to do with her was not to talk about our differences, but instead I started to share from my heart and testify what God was doing in my life. What I later realised was that a lot of times in 'those' churches, people talk a lot of doctrinal stuff but there is not a lot of that organic, 'this is who Jesus is in my life'.

So I started to realise that in the end, no matter where I went, there were some fundamentals of the faith: the Resurrection, the Cross, Forgiveness, Grace. I was starting to feel what these fundamentals were, and then starting to realise that there is a lot of variation in the stuff that is not really that important.

I was a big stickler too on the way people spoke and the words that they used. In fact, I could still preach a pretty fiery sermon for a couple of hours on Christian clichéd words which I don't think help -- but I think I missed the heart of it. And that was love. So the irony was that I was actually full of grace for those outside the church but full of judgement for those inside it!

So that was my journey with the idea of what Christians are and the word 'Christian'. But when it comes to using the term 'Christian music' -- both as a genre and as something describing an opinion of a movement... I read your interview with Brooke Fraser. I have known Brooke since she was a kid but I found it interesting, because I don't think she has really done a whole lot in the Christian music scene and yet she has a lot to say about it! [What she has to say] is probably limited to New Zealand and Australia. And with a lot of Australians and New Zealanders -- because Christian music here in America is the epicentre of Christian music -- there is a little bit of an anti-US sentiment which goes along with her sort of opinions.

Mark Tulk: You have come from Australia and are now based in the US. Here, as you know, there can be that perhaps cynical attitude that 'he has gone to Nashville to make his money or his fame' or 'it is easier there'. What are your thoughts then on what Brooke touched on, regarding CCM [Contemporary Christian Music] and the 'merchandising of the gospel', to use her phrase? What is your view, particularly that you are now in that 'epicentre', as you call it? You are also part of perhaps the most successful CCM band of all time... has your attitude towards the Nashville 'scene' changed at all?

Paul Colman: I was talking to this guy the other day at a church I was preaching at, and we were talking about this idea. He was in Sales, but he has nothing to do with Christian music. What we were talking about was that as this guy grew up, he realised he had a personality where he connected with people. He had gravitated towards Sales, and for a period of time it was pretty cruisy. But then he started to realise that he was actually using his personality to sell things which, after a while, made him feel like he was manipulating people with a God-given gift.

I think it's kinda the same when you go and sing in a church. I am going there to get paid, and yet I am also a messenger of the gospel. It does say in the scriptures that a worker is worthy of his wages, and not just the worker who works in the secular world. When Brooke goes to a meeting she is being as nice as she possibly can, whether she is hanging out with Sony or whoever. When she is hanging out backstage with David Bowie, she is not walking up and flipping the guy off. So in a sense we all understand that to get what we need out of a situation, we have to be the nicest person we can. Maybe when we get in the van afterwards we say 'I can't stand those people!'

You might be a housewife and your sphere of influence is the court you live in and you're a bit gossipy behind the other mothers' backs -- 'how are you doing? Good to see you! How are the kids?' and then you walk back into the house and say 'I fricken hate that woman!'. There is that sense that no matter what we do, all of us understand that there is this tension that exists between who we really are and how we portray ourselves.

We all have a gift, whether it be a musical gift or whether it be a connecting with people gift or whether it is making stuff -- we all have to somehow deal with this issue. I don't think it is just related to those who are involved in the industry that surrounds music -- that is, the music that is lyrically focused on the glory of God.

My definition of Christian music is music that comes from someone who has a relationship with God and then this naturally just comes out -- they just want to sing about God, in the same way as when you are in love with someone, you want to write a love song. Christian music would also include music intentionally written by people to get people's focus on God by the fact that the lyrics are pretty obviously about God.

I also think, though, that there is a broader definition. If someone's a Christian and they write music, then I guess you could call it 'Christian music', but the term is also a genre. Radio programmers all over the world in Christian radio will not play X but they will play Y. And why would they play Y? Because Y is considered a 'Christian' song and X is considered a 'secular' song. In the same way in 1750, Mozart wrote either for the court or wrote for the church.

So there has always been that distinction; Christian music programmers or CCM magazines didn't come up with that idea. But there is also that sense when you read the scriptures and you look at someone like Nehemiah. He built the walls of Jerusalem and you would say that was holy work, but I think there is a sense that when you are a Christian ( i.e. when you are a follower of Jesus, when you have accepted the atonement of his sacrifice of his blood, and you have said 'yes I believe that I can only be saved and can only get to God the Father through Jesus') when you call yourself a Christian -- whether you are a painter or a soccer mum or whether you are a musician or a sculptor -- you don't just have to do crosses or depict Mary. You might just paint a nude, I mean, in the end the body is beautiful! Then there are a whole lot of people out there who are going to judge whether that is or isn't Christian art.

In the end what it comes down to, at least for me, is I can have an opinion on all that stuff but what I have been given is a job to love the people that I have a connection with. As much as possible I aim to act with integrity. I'll give you a current example -- some guy emailed me and wanted to sing one of my songs off my record -- not Karaoke, he wanted the actual track. So I called my record label and they said 'well we don't really want to do this, but if you want to do that, then that is fine'.

So I contacted the guy and I said, 'Okay, the label will not release this, but if you want to fly to Nashville, I will hook up a studio for you, I will pick you up at the airport, and my mate will video it for you and charge you a little bit of money but it will be a great experience for you'. I did this because this guy was a fan. And then I thought, 'Great!' And then I thought long and hard and I thought... I could charge this guy a pretty good amount of money for the privilege of singing with me! I thought I could probably manipulate the guy! But in the end I just said, 'Look, just give me some sort of donation for the time and for the fact that I will never get fully paid for the hours that I would put into this.' That was an example where I really prayed, and consulted some people on how to act with integrity in that situation.

In the same way when I go to sing in a church, I just say to the pastor, 'Look, I will get you to mention my CD. I know they are out there, you know they are out there.' I know that I will count the money on the way home, but as much as I possibly can, when I am leading worship or when I am doing my song I don't want to really be thinking about how many CDs I'm selling.

When it comes down to what I think about a 'Christian industry', or when I think about 'Christian music', my mind first thinks about people. I think about the people I know, I think about the quality of the people I know. I know there are people out there who have bad motivations -- I know, I have been one of them. I know I believe that everyone in the world has mixed motives and I think that if you don't realise that, you are actually fooling yourself. I don't think there is such a thing as a perfectly pure motive, because we are just not born that way.

But for me now, I just try as best as I can to act with as much integrity as I possibly can. But I am fully aware of the fact that when I am leading the people in worship, or if I am singing a song, the better that song is then the more CDs they will buy -- and the bigger the house is that I am going to live in. How can you avoid that?

So people who are in secular music think it is crazy. And do you know what, in some ways secular music is probably a little cleaner. But then again what if you are a Christian (and I have sung in pubs as a Christian) and you know that the more people drink, the more you will get paid. And if you are a Christian who is involved in the secular music industry, then you have got a whole lot of other things that you have got to wrestle with because your record company is going to want to take out a lot of stuff on your records. They will want to make the lyrics 'I love you', instead of 'I love God', and you are going to feel 'am I compromising?'.

As a Christian I have had arguments with other Christian musicians about judging bands that are more ambiguous in what they say. Some people argue that bands like that are not really making Christian music. I say 'Hang on a minute, who are we to judge them?' It's not our job. Each person needs to do what they feel God has called them to do and if that person needs to be ambiguous in their lyrics so they get signed by a record label and get into that club date with that band... when they go on tour maybe they form relationships where they start to see God doing work in their lives!

I think that over the last years (fortunately for me and probably for everyone else too) I have become a lot less judgmental. It doesn't mean that I have become more bland, because I still have opinions! But hopefully my love for people and my acceptance of them and my hope for them and my grace for them is greater than my idea of what they should or should not be doing.

So when I think of an 'industry' and the 'Christian music' genre, I start thinking of the people I know. Then I start thinking 'Boy, I remember that record executive who just got a divorce', and I think 'I know that agent who just adopted three kids', and 'I know that artist who just told me they are struggling with this'... and 'I know that radio guy -- I am going to call him even though I am not asking him to put my song on the radio'. Or I remember that promoter, he is not promoting my show but maybe I should call him and see if he wants to come... that is how God has started to work in my life and started to free some spirit, like kindness and faithfulness. Before I think I was pretty heavy-handed with my judgments.

Mark Tulk: Do you think that your attitude has changed a lot now -- because of the fact that you are well and truly established in a successful band? Your previous work means that you have achieved a lot -- is it easier to have those views now than it was starting out? For example, is it easier for you not to be thinking about CD sales...

Paul Colman: I don't necessarily think so. It may be, it is hard for me to tell, but I do know people who are starting out who have a much better attitude than I ever did. I am embarrassed and ashamed about some of the ways I'd think and talk and some of the people I have hurt. I was very driven for a long time and God is so graceful and so kind and uses you even though you have got faults. Even though you have bad attitudes, He still uses you, He is still graceful towards you even if you have been ungraceful to others.

I don't think that the lust and greed in someone's heart for possessions, or position or for power, or influence changes based on what they do or don't have. I can give you a million reasons why I want to sell more records and why I want to make more money. I could fuel that selfish ambition in my heart any second.

I turned forty last year and I took a pretty big stocktake and I thought 'Okay, I am not U2, I am not Elvis. I'm not Seal, I'm not even Robbie Williams, I'm not even Midnight Oil! I am not a known name across the globe, so therefore I have fallen short of the ambitions I set when I was a kid.' But I have done a lot, and I have had some great things happen and I'm actually content.

I still strive for more -- I still work, I should say. But do you know what? It is all good. One of the great things about being successful in Christian music is that you get to play at arenas with 100,000 people. I am in a band now where we have private planes and we get to go all over the globe. I never tune a guitar now, I never set up my rig... we don't even sound check -- we have crews to do that. And I'm with a really great band. And yet we are virtually unknown! We can walk off a plane or go to an airport and no-one knows who we are -- and for a band that sells 7 million records and sells out arenas, I think it's funny.

The guys told me this when I joined the band a couple of years ago, and I didn't really realise it then, but we played to 8,000 people at the Target Centre in Minneapolis and it was a sold-out arena. Seal was playing around the corner to a club with 950, or let's say Van Morrison is playing to 3,500 this year and we've more than doubled his crowd -- Van freaken Morrison!

The great thing is that you can experience a lot of the benefits of success in music without a lot of the costs. And the other thing is that people are expecting you to be humble about it. I'm a better man because I'm married to my wife, I am a better man because I have two kids, I am a better man because I am in a Christian rock band, I'm a better man because of these things -- because every night I hear my singer preach the gospel through my in-ear monitors. Every day I interview, I am talking about my faith -- it forces me into that place where I am constantly thinking about my faith and communicating it.

So personally I couldn't be happier because this whole Christian industry is designed to destroy my personal ego! That is the whole idea, right? So you can travel in a worship band, and think that's pretty cool, and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit starts speaking to you -- 'excuse me, what are you doing this for?' 'Oh, that's right, for you, God. Sorry.'

Whereas if you are in a secular situation I think it is harder... they might think it's harder, I don't know. I personally find that at forty I took stock and went: 'it is all good, it's okay'. I am working for more, I am trying to do better, but I actually feel a sense of peace and contentment and I think I am in a place that is just right for me.

But in this line of work I have bands calling me asking to sing my songs and so I think 'This is a great opportunity I have here to serve a guy who is excited about meeting me, how can I humble myself?' The guy I picked up at the airport and took to the studio and coached him through the song? Why is he doing it? Because he wants to give it to his wife, for a Valentine's day present. What a great thing, what a great opportunity for me to actually put someone ahead of myself!

Mark Tulk: Do you ever find that the adulation ever makes you feel uncomfortable? Do you ever feel at all 'What's this all about?' Sure people are appreciating the band and the music but is that a bit weird for you? You have been doing this for a long time, but does that realisation ever freak you out?

Paul Colman: It never freaks me out, it's more that I think pretty much every human begins doing what they do for all the wrong reasons, no matter what job you do. I know I keep coming back to that, but I really don't think that we're very different from each other, we just have different ways of expressing it. I think the basic essence of who a human is, is the same: whether they are on stage or not, whether they have got money or not. It doesn't change them into a materialist if they have got 50 million dollars or only sixty dollars, because materialism is about how tightly you hang on to what you've got.

In the same way, I started doing music and performing because that was one place where I did not get rejected. In school, Sunday school and in church etc I got a lot of rejection because of my personality. When you have got a personality that means I can walk in front of a crowd of a thousand people I have never met before, and have them buy $20,000 worth of records -- I have got video footage of me doing that -- I mean, how do you tone that down? Whether it is at a party or in the classroom, I always had that gift. But it took me a long, long time to even begin to start understanding what self-control was about! So the reason I started performing was that I was up on stage and I was using my gift and no one could touch me -- and I just got used to it.

So I started living my life through that and I think that what happened to me was that I drank in the adulation of people, until I was drunk with it. I drank it in and I drank it in, but fortunately because the good God put a deposit of Himself in me, eventually it made me ill, eventually I got so alienated by operating my life out of my gift that I became very empty. So I stopped and I said 'Okay, God, obviously I have got this all wrong, and I built a lot of foundations here that are actually built on sand,' and I saw a vision of years to come in my head... I felt I had reached a crossroads -- this was maybe towards the end of the Paul Colman Trio, when we broke up.

I felt an incredible lack of peace and I really couldn't understand which doors God had opened up and which ones I had forced my way through. I couldn't tell which food I was eating at the restaurant -- which I had paid for or had stolen. I couldn't tell which money in my bank was money I had earned and which was stuff I had manipulated. I couldn't actually tell -- everything was very fuzzy. So I started praying very intensely for a couple of years. If I had been single right then, I would have gone into a kibbutz or a monastery, or gone and lived in a third world country and I would have just let everything fall off. But here I was with two kids and a wife, having travelled the world making music and this was how I was making my living. So how was I going to step away from Paul Colman? How was I going to let me 'die' and let God rebuild the foundations of my life?

And it was not long after that Peter asked me to join the Newsboys. On the surface I thought, 'This is good -- I'll go from obscurity to joining a supergroup. That will really work!' But in the end what I was able to do by joining the Newsboys, was that I was able to leave the Colman bit behind. I was able to move from the centre of the stage, to stage right. I was able to move from the owner to an employee, I was able to move from the originator to the 'new guy', I was able to move from vocals to backing vocals, I was able to move from starting quarterback to... something else -- I don't know American football very well! I received this opportunity to let a lot of the momentum that I had created, die out. And I am still in that process and just recently did my 200th Newsboys gig. And I am still in that process, and it has been a wonderful time for me as a person.

So getting back directly to your question, I have gotten so sick of the taste in my mouth of taking the glory for myself that even if I put it in my mouth I cannot do it for very long, it feels like I am eating dog poo -- that is a horrible thing to say, but I want to make it a horrible thing to say. I have never tasted dog poo and I never want to, but I can imagine it is not good! So what happens is that when I am on stage right now I actually feel unbelievably comfortable because I don't feel like I focus on people's adulation and I don't feel like the focus of my own. And I am constantly praying, I am constantly saying 'God use me and let my heart and my attitude right now bless you, thank you that I have the privilege of being here'.

Every time I walk on stage I feel more humble than I do proud, but it is not because I haven't tried pride. I married it and I brought it home into my house and brought it into everything -- after a while you see that is not a marriage that God made, and eventually I divorced it. But do you know what, it still wants to take me out on a date every now and then, and I have to keep telling it to get stuffed and get out of my life.

The great thing about being with a group is that your countenance really does rub off on people, and I know that when I am not right, people know this. Fortunately Peter (the singer) and I have been really good mates for about ten years -- since I first started coming to Nashville. He has become a real Godsend because he is such a very pastoral person, and yet he is also very 'apostolic' in the way he does his business -- he is way more successful than I have ever been, and that is humbling for me. But he's a very kind and Godly person, so right now when I am on stage it doesn't really do to me what it used to do to me, it now humbles me.

Mark Tulk: Some people talk about music as ministry or entertainment or a mixture of these. I was interested with the Newsboys show I went to, to see the way in which things morphed between rock-and-roll show into worship, then into personal testimony -- it all seemed swirling around together. Do you see any tension between those different elements?

Paul Colman: The reason I don't is because really that's the way every Christian is. You are a Christian guy and you're in business and you sell widgets or whatever. You get up in the morning and you read your Bible -- if you are a good Christian you would! [laughter] You might even be 'good' enough to pray with your family before you go to work! [laughter] So then you walk into work and you can't really focus on being nice all the time; you have got to focus on beating the competition and making money, because if you don't you'll lose your job. Then you get to the end of nine hours of going hard at it.

Now obviously you have got to act with integrity, but there might be someone you have to fire. Or there might be some competition where you have to be wily... well that's the person who has to struggle with exactly what we struggle with as Christian musicians. That is to say, an audience is going to come to see someone who is entertaining; they are not going to come to see someone who bores them. So if you are an entertainer, you have got to be the best entertainer you can be. Look at the Go Tour we're on right now... We've got a spinning drum rise, we've got an 85 foot catwalk, we've got CO2 that gets fired into the air... We have got fifty pounds of confetti which we release every night; we have three massive screens behind us; we've got four cameras in the audience that bounce images on those screens. We've got video technicians behind the screens, we have a state-of-the-art computer to manipulate the images... we have got it all going on! In a pop-rock show, if you turned down the volume you would think it was just some pop-band -- but with all our songs, the lyrics are really about the gospel. And then you're right, it does morph into this moment that becomes less of a proclamation and less of a 'show', and more of a serious thing.

It's in the same way as that business man I mentioned before -- he has lunch with one of the guys in his cell group, and he goes from being 'dog eat dog' to 'Hey man, how are you doing? I'm glad to be with a brother for lunch! How are you doing? Oh man, I have to put on this 'hard guy' image when I'm there at work, but really... '. Well, that's the same way as us Newsboys having to stop and pay more of a direct focus. And then there is an opportunity, because the band is called the Newsboys -- and it's about bringing the Good News.

Now, I would understand someone looking back and saying 'Man, this is like God in show business! This is scary!' and I would say, 'You know what? It kind of is a bit scary. But all we are trying to do is earn a living as musicians, and this is the best we can do. And the thing is that we are not a worship band like Hillsong United, but neither are we a band like Switchfoot.' We are somewhere different... and therefore some of our songs are very obvious, like 'Hallelujah He Reigns'. Other songs like 'Something Beautiful' are more generic. You try to put all that in one show and it is going to seem a little wacky sometimes.

But I think, in the end, [you've got to ask] is God's presence there or not? Are you realising the presence of the Almighty God in that place, despite all of our inadequacies and in spite of the fact we might have mixed motives? Despite the fact that we might be morphing from one element to the next, despite the fact that as entertainers we might be halfway through a worship song and actually thinking about what we are going to eat after the show? Despite all these things, God is big enough -- and graceful enough -- that if you give your heart to Him, He will work through your mixed motives, He will work through your strange ideas, He will work through your hotchpotch of 'morphs'...

Mark Tulk: Do you find it easy to be yourself in that context, or do you feel that in being an artist -- particularly in Nashville - that you have to 'switch back' into a Paul Colman or Newsboys 'performance mode' and then have to switch back to yourself again? How free do you feel to be yourself in your day to day work?

Paul Colman: I think my answers generally start out pretty generic and then end up being pretty specific. But once again, I see the relationships that I have in my life like the Target symbol, but with a lot more concentric circles. You have got your inner sanctum of people: your wife, probably a couple of good mates if you are lucky, perhaps even some family members are in there -- those are the people that you feel totally free around, to talk about anything. Then you've got the next level of people, that you might not tell how much money you have got in the bank. You might not tell that person that you are in counselling for anger management or something, but it is a person you could tell that you are feeling pretty crap right now, would they pray for you, or that you have got some things to do with your finances that you would really appreciate their thoughts on. Then the circles move outwards -- fans are like 5 to 10 rungs out... They're not the sort of people you would bring into your home, or they're not the sort of people you would sit down with, generally speaking, particularly not women (I would never do that). So generally I feel very free to be myself.

I love living in Nashville Tennessee. I would not want to live anywhere else in the world right now; this is where I feel I am meant to be and where I want to be and I don't feel constricted by that. Now when I am at a show, when I am at a church, when I am at a festival, I know that I am at work and I feel free to call it work. I don't feel the constriction of thinking ministry is work -- the reason I don't is that 21 years ago someone said to me that everything you do is ministry, you are always ministering to God, so I am happy to use that word now because I feel free to use it. Really when it comes down to it, what isn't ministry?

So when I am at a festival, I won't just walk out in a crowd necessarily -- sometimes I might, but the great thing about being the 'new guy' in the Newsboys -- and having moderate success in America as Paul Colman -- is that I have a lot more freedom than Peter does to walk around at festivals. I might get stopped every now and again, but generally speaking, people don't really care. There was a time in my life when that would have really upset me, but now I am thrilled. So I think I feel pretty free in my own life. There are times when you are out with your family, like when I have been at Easterfest, and I have just walked out on the main street with my wife and I can't get five feet without people wanting to talk to me. But I think that if you don't want that, well get into a cab and go to the other side of town! But there is a certain point where, if you have good boundaries and you know when to walk away and when to be there, it's okay and it doesn't bother me.

And the thing is people actually come up and talk to you, not because they want to ask you anything but because people want to talk to someone who is well known. They think that by doing so it will validate them, and so in the end you realise that the more well-known you are, the more of a public servant you really are because people are coming up to you and thinking, 'Boy, if I could talk to that person and tell them how I feel, that would be really cool!' So what you actually find is that you spend a lot more time sitting and listening to people than you do talking about yourself. People don't come up to you and say 'How are you?' They say 'Oh, when you wrote that song I was thinking...' and you realise when you are in that position, that you are there to serve them -- God has given you the opportunity to do that.

I think that you need to keep your boundaries right. Now that I am talking to you, you have a hundred percent of my attention -- I am not on the internet, I am not watching a TV show, my wife has gone to bed, and so I am a hundred percent talking to you as best I can, and that is because I have learnt how to set boundaries. Do you know what? Three weeks ago, six weeks ago when you first contacted me, I thought, I really want to talk to this guy, I like this! But I couldn't at that time because I was moving house and my parents were in town, and I was making a record and I was on the road -- but now... and I think in the same way when I am in a show. I don't feel as though I am obligated to talk to people and I don't feel that I am obligated to not do that. I feel at this point in my life I feel very free to stay or to go, and I am really trying to hear God's voice 'Stay and talk to that guy' or 'Right, go home now'.

And I get energised by people. I don't get energised by going to a concert, going on stage and then going to a hotel (but I'll do that sometimes). I actually love talking to people, that is my favourite part of the night, I wouldn't even do a show half the time because I like talking and discussing ideas, sometimes more than playing -- I have actually to save some of these thoughts for my songs! Sometimes my guitar says 'Buddy, you gave it all away, I've got nothing for you!'

Mark Tulk: So how would you define success now?

Paul Colman: I think success is a pretty organic word. I think I try to put it down now to personal/relational versus career. For a long time I actually got confused by the difference between a vision and a goal. Unfortunately some of my goals became visions -- and the problem with that is that when you achieve them, it doesn't feel like you have. That's why when you are at a sporting event and people say 'You've just won the grand final -- how does it feel?', and the footballer replies 'Oh, it hasn't sunk in yet'. Well, it ain't ever going to sink in, because it is never going to fulfil you.

I think now for me, ultimate success is being a great husband and a great father... being a great friend, a great son and a great brother. I might not be all of those things, but I am focusing more of my attention on those things than I ever have before. So in my neighbourhood, I want people to know me as a guy who will come and help, and as a guy who will ask how are they are doing. You know, there are a couple of guys around the world who helped me when I was independent and I had nobody. These were people who did jobs that were not related to the music industry. They helped me back then, and I felt God really put it on my heart to be faithful to those people even though they really can't do anything for me any more. And that is a lesson for me in understanding -- that just because someone can't do anything for me doesn't mean that I shouldn't be faithful to that person. Not just because I owe them, but because God put it on my heart. This is a part of them learning who God is, by me learning to be faithful to them. I think about that stuff way more than I think about music, way more than I think about my career.

Having said that, I don't think there is anything wrong with me being strategic or hard-working, when it comes to achieving as much success in my job as possible. And when you are free, you are free to think one or the other. I am free to live in a mansion, I feel pretty free to live in a one-bedroom apartment, I feel free to drive a crappy car or a great car. I prefer to drive a great car and live in a nice house! I am not going to say I don't, but when it comes down to it, it doesn't define me like it once used to.

So for me success in my music is quite clear. I am going to put out a record in about three months and I could tell you -- based on the first week of sales -- whether that is going to be a success or not. And I have no qualms about it and I know I might fail or succeed, but whether I fail or succeed I know that God is going to love me, my wife is going to love me, my kids are going to love me, my Dad and Mum are going to love me... I know that my friends are going to love me, and therefore I want all my treasure to be in that place.

Having said that, if it doesn't sell well I will be pissed off, I will be upset, I will be saying 'Dang it! I felt this was a great record!' But that season will go.

But I think people can go the other way and say 'It is all in God's hands so we won't try' and I think that is just a fear of failure. Hopefully I am getting to a place where I feel really free to work hard at this. I feel really free to hope this album sells really well, I feel free to hope that I sell a million records -- but I know that if I don't, I am still going to like who I am and I will get over any disappointment and say 'So what?' and move on.

Mark Tulk: As an artist, what kinds of things do you still wish to explore in your work?

Paul Colman: I have never really put on a record what I think I am capable of putting on a record. I don't think I ever have written the songs that I think I am capable of writing. Just this week in the studio I have been learning to sing without pushing too hard, without over-singing. On stage I am trying to learn how to let the song do the work rather than me feeling I have to manipulate it, or push it, or put a funny little bit in there because I don't feel secure that people are getting it. I am always thinking about how to write the greatest set list, and how to make a transition from one thing to another. I am trying to think about how much to speak inbetween songs... some singer-songwriters are notorious for talking too much -- I know I have written a few chapters of that book!

The great thing about being in Newsboys is that I have had to learn a completely different kind of skill set. I had really only played acoustic guitar when I joined this band. Peter asked me to join, and then a week later he sheepishly called me and asked whether I thought I could cut it. I told him I would have to think about that, but I thought I'd be okay. I actually surprised myself (as well as them) how well I have been doing on the electric guitar. I don't think I imagined that I'd be making some of the sounds that I have been making. When Joel left the band, I had to become a tenor, and I sing on top of my range all night now. I was surprised that I was able to do that, so I think that there have been a lot of things for me to work on -- I always feel that the best song I have ever written will be the next one and not the one I just wrote. I am always thinking about what I don't have and how to make it better and how to be better at what I do -- I am constantly thinking about that.

Mark Tulk: What kind of advice would you give to Australian Christian artists?

Paul Colman: I think that the advice you would give to someone would very much depend on their own individual aspirations. Everyone needs to be free to define success for themselves. For me, what I wanted to do was to become an international musician; I wanted to become somebody who travelled the world. I wasn't satisfied with Victoria, I wasn't satisfied with Australia, with Australasia. What I wanted to do was travel the world and play my own music. I wanted to connect with people based on what I felt God was telling me to do, connect with them to get a chance to talk about my faith -- that was my aspiration. Therefore the advice I would give someone like that is very different from the advice that I would give to someone who basically wanted to be a singer in their church worship band, or someone who wants to write a song for self-expression versus someone who wants to write a song which wins them a Grammy.

In the end it is very difficult to give generic advice. But whatever kind of musician you are, in the end the currency of music is songs, it really is, so whether you are singing someone else's hit songs or whether you are trying to write one, that is the most powerful currency in music. You have great songs (whether you are a songwriter only, or whether you are an artist and you want to be the one travelling around doing the singing) and you have got to have killer songs. You've really got to have the best songs that are out there, whether you need to sing someone else's or co-write. And if you are someone who wants to get over here [USA], you have got to find a way to do it. I have had a number of artists (some of these people use the term 'mentor' and I don't know why, but I feel very uncomfortable with that word. Perhaps it is false humility, perhaps it is fear, I don't know), who have come out here and visited me a couple of times and hung out. I have invited them to shows and we have done a lot of stuff... a number of people over the years who have come to me to ask for my opinion. This is very humbling because what the heck would I know, and I have had to really cross-examine them and ask 'What is it you really want to do?' That advice is really very specific to what you want to achieve, and I think that in the end the most generic advice I could ever give someone would be that you really need to trust God. Now that sounds like a really super wonderful little Christian cliché, but the truth is, in life either you trust yourself or you trust God, and God is the one who makes the big moves. He is the one who makes the plates beneath the earth move, He is the one who is the mighty presence and power.

But having said that, you also need to work hard. I remember being a kid at my Dad's church and some visiting singer would sing a song about God and it was just hideous, and he'd say something like 'God gave me this song'... and my friend and I always thought that the reason he gave it to that person was because He didn't want it himself, it was so crap. I know that sounds humorous but we thought, literally, if that is a song from God, I think I might go somewhere else! The chorus was all wrong, and it didn't have a proper bridge and it was in the wrong key...

So I think you have to have that sense of working hard, and if you are working hard to be a singer in the church worship band, or whether it is working hard to be an internationally well-known musician, there is that part where you have to work. There is nothing glamorous about it, you have got to practise, you have to write songs. If you are carrying too much weight you have got to lose it -- for certain bands that doesn't seem to apply, but most of us we get pretty scrutinised if we are carrying a few too may pounds ... things like that, understanding business. I mean, I have been screwed by a lot of people, a lot of people. I have lost tens of thousands of dollars from the wrong kind of relationships and that is because I am not really much of a businessman. And do you know what? I have also done my fair share of ripping people off too, out of wrong motives or out of ignorance. I have hopefully turned my back on all of that now.

So it is very hard to give specific advice, but working hard and trusting God, and then to have people who really agree with you and actually check your progress. The worst thing you could do is be on your own, because who is there to pick you up when you fall? Who is there to let you know that you are actually turning into something of a jerk? It's better that stuff comes from a friend than an enemy... Those would be my thoughts.

Mark Tulk: Do you think that the church needs to play a different role in supporting musicians in Australia, or needs to take a degree of responsibility in encouraging and supporting artists?

Paul Colman: Yes, I think so and I think in the same way artists have a responsibility to support their church. Most of us artists would complain 'They [the church] don't 'get' me, they don't understand my work, they don't love me...' but most of us artists are a pretty rebellious lot! We don't like to submit to authority, we don't really like the idea of a pastor saying 'I don't think now is the right time'. We can reply 'Well, screw you, man, I heard from the Holy Spirit that it's time for me to be a big rock star so who are you talking to?'

A lot of times in churches musicians should realise that there are a lot of incredible people who would have a lot of wisdom about how to do what you do. I have often given this advice to musicians who have asked me and I have said, 'Look, are you involved in a church?' To which they sometimes reply, 'Not really'. Well, you need to get involved in your local church, you need to be under authority. Who are you telling your plans to? 'Well, nobody'... well, you and your wife should start doing this because unless you are under authority, you have no authority; unless you are submitted, no one is going to submit to you, and if you don't have people watching your back then when that temptation comes... and I say I know, because I have done all those things before! I have also done it right, and I can tell you, the right way is much better.

When it comes to business advice, there are businessmen in every church who are really good businessmen and no-one has ever really asked their opinion. You know, what about setting up agreements with bands? Gosh, I wish I had got better advice -- I would have hurt much fewer people if I hadn't have been so stupid with the things that I promised. I was the classic over-promise, under-deliver guy and now I am trying to learn to be under-promising and over-delivering. You know, actually pay someone more for a show or make something better, not promise the sun and only give them a cloud.

As long as musicians are willing to say 'I need to support my local church, I need to be committed', then I think it is only fair enough that you can expect the church to support you as well. But I think us musicians have a lot to learn about submitting. That doesn't mean you have to do everything somebody says; there is always room for argument and resolving things and having differences of opinion and okay, maybe that local church is not the right place and maybe there is another church across town... as long as someone knows you and what you are doing and prays with you and talks it through with you. In the end that kind of support will either make or break you.

Mark Tulk: Thanks again for your time, Paul. It's been great to talk!

Paul Colman: Thanks Mark.

www.paulcolman.com/
www.newsboys.com/